


Point of Ignition

by orphan_account



Series: Smoke Over Water [2]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Present Tense, post 7x11
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-02
Updated: 2017-03-26
Packaged: 2018-09-27 20:28:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10047443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Fiona had told him that getting involved with Mickey again would set a match to all of his progress, but in the history of fires that made up a good portion of Ian’s life, Mickey had always been the one to put them out, or at the very least, burn himself trying.Ian had decided, then, in the middle of the night after everyone had gone to bed, that playing with fire was infinitely better than feeling burned out.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a continuation of Smoke Over Water, so please give that a read first if you haven't already!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s been fifty-one minutes since his brother threw open the curtains and shoved open his bedroom window, warning him about the cops downstairs.

**Canaryville, Chicago, IL.  
** _12:59:27 PM_

It’s been fifty-one minutes since his brother threw open the curtains and shoved open his bedroom window, warning him about the cops downstairs. Forty-seven minutes since he climbed out of the window and didn’t look back, and twenty-two minutes since he hung up with Mickey, out of breath and excited - and a little bit terrified, if he’s completely fucking honest; but he knew going into this that if he wanted the thrill, that he was going to have to accept the sliver of fear that was bound to come with it. Part of the thrill of _anything_ is knowing that at any second all of it can be ripped away from you in as little time as it takes to blink, that everything could go wrong before you ever get the chance to let your blood settle.

For most of his life, Ian has always been fit, save for the brief period when he’d first started taking his meds and the last thing he wanted to do was get out of bed, but all of that feels like ages ago now. He’s come a long way, sorted out both his head and his health to the best of his abilities, but even with all of his army training under his belt, even with all of his five mile runs at 6AM, the unexpectedness of the morning and the realization that he doesn’t actually have a plan in place is enough to slow Ian’s jog down to a brisk walk, breathing in deep through his nose as his lungs burn for more oxygen.

The Chicago air is crisp and cold and void of the sound of sirens (for now), and Ian glances back over his shoulder for a moment just to make sure he’s not being tailed. He reaches back to pull the hood on his jacket up, tucking his hair up into it as best as he can with a couple pushes of his fingers, and then adjusts the strap of his backpack, his feet carrying him blindly, keeping him moving even without a solid destination in mind.

“Shit,” he breathes, patting his jacket pockets down for the pack of cigarettes he didn’t think to grab in his rush to get out of the house.

Last night he’d had a plan - or the semblance of one at the very least - rough and filled with little holes that he’d have to fix or work around later, but it had been enough to get him out of bed and quietly packing a bag in the late hours of the night, his conversation with Lip from a few hours earlier playing over and over in his head.

_“You ever think of Mandy? [...] I mean - do you ever regret letting her go?” “Every damn day. [...]_ _I loved her. By the time I realized how much, it was already too late. But I think she loved me too, you know? Really, truly, loved me. ... If there’s one thing I regret, it’s letting her go.”_

It was all Ian had needed to realize that he’d made a mistake, that leaving Mickey at the border was possibly one of the worst decisions he’d ever made. Fiona had told him that getting involved with Mickey again would set a match to all of his progress, but in the history of fires that made up a good portion of Ian’s life, Mickey had always been the one to put them out, or at the very least, burn himself trying, even if his motivations and his methods for protecting Ian were sometimes a little unclear at the time. If the water sometimes seemed like gasoline instead, it’s only because nobody ever looked hard enough or stayed long enough to watch the flames flicker out, and Mickey was the last person to blame for everyone else’s inability to see his actions for what they really were, far beyond the surface.

Ian had decided, then, in the middle of the night after everyone had gone to bed, that playing with fire was infinitely better than feeling burned out. If Mickey was a match like Fiona had said, then Ian was a torch set to burn for the rest of his life.

“Okay,” Ian breathes, a low whisper ghosting past his lips as he glances over his shoulder again, taking a sharp left without really thinking too much about where his feet are taking him. His brain is too jumbled, too scattered to focus on any one thing for more than a few seconds, but he knows he has to keep moving, keep going, keep thinking. “Fuck.”

All of this seemed so much easier last night when he was laying in bed staring up at the ceiling, a bag packed and ready to go for the morning, but Ian should have known better than to think for even a second that happiness was something that had ever or would ever come easy for a Gallagher. In all of their years combined, nothing had ever come easy. Nothing was ever as simple or a lucky as it seemed, and if it wasn’t Frank or Monica sweeping in like a hurricane to twist everything around and turn their lives upside down, then they usually took care of the destruction themselves. Usually, without even trying.

Before he knows it, Ian finds himself climbing the steps up to the El, sliding his Ventra card back into his wallet and then tucking the billfold into his back pocket. He adjusts the strap of his bag on his shoulder again and sniffs quietly, trying to appear a lot more relaxed than he actually feels. He keeps his head tilted down and his hood up, and when the train finally pulls into the station a minute or two later (thank god), he steps on and tucks himself in towards the back of the car, sliding his wrist through one of the worn straps hanging from the handrail above him.

As the train starts to pull away from the station, Ian shoves his hand into his jacket pocket, his fingers closing tightly around his phone. It’s been less than an hour since he ended his phone call  with Mickey, but already things are starting to feel… uncertain. He feels unsteady and conflicted where he felt confident just the night before, and the sudden switch makes him feel anxious and nervous and, frankly, kind of at a loss for what to do.

Ian stares down at the phone in his hand, the flesh of his cheek caught between the edges of his teeth. He breathes out through his nose, then unlocks the screen with a single swipe of his thumb, tapping the contacts and scrolling through the short list of names until he reaches the ‘M’s. There are only four names listed. He touches the second name from the top, and then brings the phone to his ear, his eyes downcast and focused on the fraying laces of his boots.

It rings once.

Twice, three times.

On the fourth ring, Ian swallows, ready to hang up before the call can go to voicemail--

“Your ass _better_ be calling to tell me you’re sorry, ‘cause if you’re not, you need to hang up and try again.”

Ian blinks slowly, relief and confusion washing over him all at once. He turns slightly, curling his shoulder in toward the window and away from the rest of the train’s passengers, attempting to create a little bubble of privacy despite the fact that literally no one on the train cares enough to pay him any attention beyond a passing glance.

“I’m… sorry?” he murmurs into the phone, his brow furrowing slightly. His tone sounds less apologetic, and more like he’s grasping for some sort of clue about what he’s supposed to be sorry for. He wets his lips, but before he can ask, he’s interrupted.

“You little shit. When were you going to tell me? _Were_ you going to tell me? Or were you just going to pretend I’d never-,”

“Mandy,” Ian interjects once it clicks, his voice quiet but sharp. “Mandy, hey - I’m sorry, okay? The whole thing was - it was a mess.”

Truth be told, Mandy hadn’t crossed his mind when he’d made the decision to go with Mickey the first time. When he’d thought about everything and everyone he’d be leaving behind after he’d tossed his backpack through the Jeep’s window, he didn’t think of her. It wasn’t until he and Mickey were laying underneath the train tracks in the middle of the night in God knows what state, Mickey pouring out his feelings the way Ian had always wanted him to when they were younger, that he’d thought of her at all.

He’d felt guilty, then, for not having said goodbye to her, when things had been more certain, when _he’d_ been more certain that he was never coming back. It was strange to think he’d felt worse about leaving her behind without so much as a ‘see ya’ than he felt about leaving his own family behind at the time, but what struck him the most was that Mickey had been able to write her off as someone who didn’t give a shit about him, lumping her in with the rest of the Milkoviches when Ian knew better. He had wondered, briefly, if maybe Mickey was still learning about love and the ways it presented itself in all its different forms.

“ _Ian._ ”

Ian swallows, realizing he hasn’t been listening to a word Mandy’s been saying to him. He wets his lips again, glancing up to look out the window for a moment before his gaze falls back to his boots.

“Yeah. Yeah, sorry, I’m here. Listen, are - are you at home? I, um.” He pauses, suddenly feeling vulnerable in a way that he hasn’t in a long time. “I need to see you.”

Mandy’s quiet for a moment, save for the sound of her breathing. Ian can already feel the shift of her mood from angry to concerned, and he steels himself for the question he knows is coming, the question everybody asks when he shows any kind of unexpected emotion anymore.

“... Okay,” she says, her tone much gentler than it was just a minute ago. “Yeah. I’m home,” she continues, and he can hear the question, feel the weight of it sitting on her tongue. “Are you okay?”

It’s not as bad as he expects, and he’s glad for it. She doesn’t jump right to the conclusion of his disorder, at least not in a way that’s so blindingly obvious, not the way his family does every time he does or says something with a little more enthusiasm than they expect from him these days. Suddenly, Ian feels a little more at ease, even if the relief is minimal. He does, however, suddenly wonder how much she knows.

“Yeah. I’m okay, I’m - fine,” he says, and for the most part, he means it. He scratches near the edge of his hood over his brow, twisting himself back around and effectively bursting his little bubble of privacy. “We can talk when I get there.”

With a quick goodbye, Ian hangs up, his thumb tapping the little red circle a few times to end the call. Before he can put his phone away, it vibrates twice in his hand. Two banner notifications scroll up to the center of the screen, one right on top of the other.

 

**MANDY MILKOVICH  
**         Kicked Iggy out for a while, so it’s just me.                  _1:37 PM_

**CARL GALLAGHER  
**         U better mail me some tequila w/ a snake in it or I’m gonna tell the cops ur getting ur dick wet in Tijuana.                  _1:37 PM_

 

Ian huffs a quiet breath through his nose, a faint smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. His phone vibrates a third time.

 

**CARL GALLAGHER  
**         Is it still called getting ur dick wet if it’s gay? jw. Snake tequila. 4 real.              _1:38 PM_

 

He leaves the message unanswered, tucking his phone back into his jacket pocket and making a point to not make eye-contact with anyone in the same train compartment for fear of being recognized. For the most part, Ian’s meds have done a pretty decent job of keeping his paranoia in check for a while now, but he can feel it creeping up his spine like fingertips ghosting over every vertebrae, climbing higher and higher toward his shoulders, closer and closer to the back of his mind.

When the El slows to a stop in the station, Ian untangles his hand from the strap above his head and shoulders his way out onto the platform, reaching up with the same hand to curl his fingers around the strap of his bag. He doesn’t linger, heading for the stairs that’ll lead him back out onto the street.

The last time Ian saw Mandy feels like ages ago, when she’d hugged him goodbye after spending the night, reminding him that a person’s birthplace isn’t always the same place a person calls home. There’s a small part of him that feels guilty for not having made a point to see her more after that, but he’d always been sure to send her the occasional text to check in or catch up or ask for hypothetical advice that was never very hypothetical at all.

Since then, she’d quit her job as an escort - after being abused by a client resulting in her killing him in self defense, Ian didn’t blame her - giving up the small apartment the agency had provided and leaving her with no option but to move back into her old house until she could figure something else out. That had been six months ago, and Ian hadn’t been over to see her even once, making up excuses on the rare occasion that she extended the invitation for him to come hang out so he wouldn’t have to face all the memories and the feelings about a boy he’d tried his best not to think about for over a year.

But that was then. That was before Mickey had looked at him from under the high school bleachers like it was the first time he’d ever seen the sun. That was before he’d felt Mickey’s fingers pulling at the collar of his jacket, before he’d met him in the dark by the docks and let Mickey breathe the life back into him, before he’d pressed his nose in between Mickey’s shoulders and breathed in deep, holding him a little tighter in the back of the van. That was before Oklahoma and Texas and almost-Mexico, and before Ian had made the biggest mistake of his life.

Finding his way from the El to the Milkovich house is as easy as finding his way home, because at one point it _was_ his home. Ian doesn’t even really have to think about it, letting his feet carry him where he needs to go until he finds himself standing just outside of the chain-link fence framing the poor excuse of a front yard. The house looks almost exactly the same - dull and cold and full of memories Ian hasn’t touched in far too long.

The fence squeaks bloody murder as he pushes it open, the hinges rough and tainted with rust. Ian wrinkles his nose at the sound and tries not to think of the last time he walked up these old, rickety steps. The vibration of his phone in his pocket has him stopping just short of the last stair and he tugs it out of his coat, thumbing the home button to light up the screen.

 

**MASTER CHIEF  
**_1 Photo Attachment_              2 _:02 PM_

 

It had taken Mickey a little over two days to text Ian after they’d parted ways at the border, which was honestly a lot sooner than Ian had ever expected to hear from him. After watching his heart break for the umpteenth time and knowing that, like almost every other time Mickey had had his heart broken, he was responsible for this last time, too - well, it would not have surprised him if he’d never heard from Mickey again.

Ian hadn’t had to ask who was at the other end of the ‘ _new number, firecrotch_ ’, because nobody else addressed him by that nickname - nobody dared to. Ian had saved the number under a false name just to be safe, settling on something that went way back to the days when he was still growing into his limbs and Mickey thought he was some kind of legendary Halo master (he wasn’t).

Chewing at the inside of his cheek, Ian takes a moment to open the message, met with a poorly lit picture of the inside of a shitty motel room. His brows furrow and he drags his thumbs to the opposite corners of the screen, enlarging the photo a little bit to see if there’s something he’s supposed to be noticing, a little detail Mickey would expect him to pick up on. Out of the garish red-orange shag carpet (was it originally red and it’s faded over time and traffic, or did someone purposely choose that color?), the eyesore of a red and pink bed spread, and the nightstand that looks like it’s seen better days, Ian can’t find anything particularly out of the ordinary. Certainly nothing worth sending a picture of.

Just as he taps the text area to reply, another message comes through.

 

**MASTER CHIEF  
**         Gettin the fuck outa this shit hole.  
        Lamp hsn’t wrkd since I chked in a wk ago.  
        How fuckin hrd is it 2 get Consuela 2 chnge a goddamn bulb?             2 _:02 PM_

 

Ian smiles to himself a little and taps out a quick response ( _you afraid of the dark now?_ ) before pocketing his phone and climbing the rest of the way up the stairs. He doesn’t even get a chance to knock before Mandy pulls the door open, nearly colliding with him as she steps out, her expression tense before it quickly smooths into something a little less intimidating.

Mandy blinks up at him, a little startled at first, but then she smiles. It’s small, but it’s genuine and Ian doesn’t even hesitate to step forward the moment she lifts her arms to hug him.

“Hey, asshole,” she says affectionately, murmuring into his shoulder. Ian sighs quietly, his cheek pressed against the side of her head. He smiles faintly, lifting her up off her feet for a moment.

“Ouch. I may or may not deserve that,” he answers as he puts her down, loosening his hold on her and letting the insult roll off of him like water. Mandy just tilts her head slightly, gesturing for him to come inside, forgetting that she’d been on a ridiculous mission to find a lighter somewhere in or around the house.

Ian follows her in, lingering just inside the door for a moment as he takes everything in. Despite all the time that’s passed, the house hasn’t really changed much. It’s still messy, but it smells less of stale beer and dirty laundry and Ian doesn’t have to wonder if maybe that’s because Terry hasn’t been around for a long time now. Ian wills himself to move, to follow Mandy, and when he passes the hallway that leads to Mickey’s old room, he can’t help but glance toward the cardboard sign that’s still taped to the door, the bold, scratchy ‘STAY THE FUCK OUT’ still warning people to do just that.

Mandy’s standing by the stove, pressing the end of a cigarette to one of the burners when Ian steps into the kitchen. He lingers in the archway, letting his backpack slide down from his shoulder so he can set it on the floor. Mandy eyes him suspiciously for a moment, but chooses not to ask him about it for now because she’s got her own slew of questions to sling at him. She turns one of the dials on the stove a little more, hiking up the heat in the hopes of lighting her cigarette a little faster.

“Well,” she says, not looking at him. The burner suddenly flares a bright red and a thin wisp of smoke curls up from the point where paper meets hot metal, and Mandy turns the dial until it clicks off. She brings the cigarette to her lips, turning to lean her back against the edge of the counter with one arm crossed over her chest. She eyes Ian for a moment, taking a long drag and blowing out a lungful of smoke. “Were you going to tell me?”

Ian’s not sure what to say. He’s not sure what she’s _asking_ , if he’s entirely honest. He leans his shoulder against the archway, forcing himself not to look away as if he has something to be guilty of. “About…?”

Mandy huffs, her eyes narrowing at him for a moment like she’s disgusted. Maybe it’s just disappointment - it’s hard to tell, but it eats at Ian either way.

“Oh, don’t. My dumbass brother breaks out of prison and you expect me to believe you’re not the first person he contacted? The first and the _only_ , I’m guessing, since the asshole couldn’t even come say bye to his fucking sister,” she spits, but the venom in her tone quickly dissipates by the time she’s done.

Ian frowns, sighing heavily as he pushes away from the wall with his shoulder, taking his hands out of his jacket pockets as he steps toward her. He holds his hand out, silently asking for the cigarette. She passes it to him after a moment’s pause.

“First of all, he’s not a dumbass. Breaking out of prison was a stupid-ass move. I’ll give you that, but he’s not stupid. Stupid people don’t find their way out of prison.” Ian pauses long enough to press the cigarette between his lips, inhaling long and hard and holding the smoke in his lungs until it burns before he blows it all out. “Second of all - you ever go see him while he was locked up? How was he supposed to know you weren’t still in Indiana with Kenyatta? That’s not fair.”

“You could have told him.”

“... Okay. _That’s_ fair.”

Ian passes the cigarette back, stepping a little closer and turning himself around so he can lean against the counter next to Mandy, close enough that their arms touch. After a beat or two of silence, Ian blinks, his brows furrowing sharply.

“How - how do you know he’s not still here in Chicago? No reason to say bye if he’s still hanging around.”

Mandy laughs, closing her eyes for a moment. Ian can’t remember the last time she looked quite as beautiful. He can’t remember the last time he saw her smile.  “Okay. He’s not a dumbass, but apparently you think _I_ am.  There’s no way in Hell he’d stick around and risk getting his ass caught and thrown back in the joint.”

Twisting slightly at the waist, Mandy turns to ash her cigarette into the sink, glancing back at Ian with raised brows and a knowing look in her eye.

“So,” she says, her lips pressed together thinly as she looks at him, like she’s daring him to tell her she’s wrong. “It’s either Mexico or Canada. He tell you where he was going?”

Ian stares at her for a few long moments, realizing then that she hardly knows anything. She doesn’t know about the road trip or the cops that showed up at his house less than two hours ago because they’d caught him on camera with Mickey in not one, but two places. She doesn’t know about him breaking Mickey’s heart for the hundredth time.

“Yeah,” Ian says, finally, as he pushes away from the counter, stepping towards the small, cluttered table in the middle of the kitchen. He reaches out, absently lifting the corner of an old stack of expired grocery coupons, purposely avoiding having to look at Mandy. “...We made it all the way to Mexico.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i live for comments and feedback :). also, master chief is a reference to the episode where mickey, ian, and mandy were playing video games on the couch back in like... season one, just in case you didn't get that. i'm like 99% sure they were playing halo. if they weren't, just pretend :)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s not so hard now to think about white sand and blue water and cold beer. It’s doesn’t make his stomach twist to imagine dark green eyes and bright red hair, and his tattooed fingers grazing over that stupid eagle inked across warm, sandy skin.

**Nuevo Laredo, Tamps., México.  
** _12:43:49 PM_

Mickey pins his lower lip under the edge of his teeth, rolling the flesh back and forth a little in an attempt to chase off the smile that’s threatening to spread across his face. Less than ten minutes ago he’d been sitting in the middle of a hole-in-the-wall restaurant ( although, almost everything down here looks like a fucking hole-in-the-wall kind of place to Mickey ), drinking a lukewarm beer and wondering if his waitress was ever gonna come back so he could ask for some more of that weird green shit to put on his tacos - _salsa verde,_ or whatever.

Less than ten minutes ago, Mickey Milkovich thought the last thing he was ever going to say to Ian Gallagher was “fuck you”, because it was easier than saying “I love you”, and they both meant the same thing anyway, as far as he’s concerned. Easier than saying goodbye. If Ian couldn’t say it at the docks, there was no way in hell Mickey was ever going to be able to say it at the border, even if he really, honestly thought that was it for them.

It’s only been a few minutes since he hung up with Ian, the promise of forty-eight hours spoken between them. Two days, and then maybe he can start to breathe again. Maybe he can stop wallowing in his own shit at 3AM when things are too quiet and his bed is too cold and too empty and he’s too sober to deal with any of it. Mickey’s never been one to think of himself as the kind of person to need anyone or anything, but fuck if it didn’t sting like a motherfucker to think that he honestly believed Mexico was going to be the start of a new life for the _both_ of them, free from all the bullshit that ever managed to drag them down and tear them apart back in Chicago, only to have that fantasy turned upside down with two little words: _I can’t_.

Forty-eight hours, and then he won’t have to force himself not to turn over so he won’t have to face the empty side of a too-small bed. Forty-eight hours, and then he can tell Ian to stop taking so much of the fucking blanket ( _how the fuck are you cold? You’re a goddamn furnace and it’s like two hundred fucking degrees. Jesus._ ) before rolling over and curling himself around him to share some of his body heat, and definitely not because he thought he was never going to share a bed with some alien-looking, freckle-faced redhead ever again. Definitely not that.

The sound of a car horn wailing behind him draws Mickey out of his thoughts and back to the present, brows furrowing sharply as he blinks and sits up to look into the rear-view mirror, his fingers tightening slightly around the steering wheel.

“Fuck you think you’re honkin’ at, hombre?” he snaps with purposely-awful pronunciation. _Home-bray._ He only really makes an effort to sound like he knows what the fuck he’s saying when he’s around other people that understand the language, and even then he’s nowhere near perfect or fluent, but he sees no point in trying when he’s just mouthing off alone in his car.

“It’s a red fucking light. God forbid you’re five minutes late to your niece’s quinc- keen- holy _fuck_.” Mickey clenches his teeth and breathes out sharply through his nose before he rolls down his window and drags himself halfway out of it, twisting around to look at the car behind him, still blaring its fucking horn. He throws up one arm, gesturing to the light, his brows shooting up his forehead.

“Jesus Christ, _it’s fucking red._ Rojo.” _Roe-hoe._ “Keep layin’ on your horn, I swear to--,” Mickey snaps his mouth shut, his nostrils flaring and his eyes closing briefly. As much as he’d like to take a bat to this guy’s windshield, he’s been making a point of keeping a low profile and drawing as little attention to himself as possible. He may be a free man, but he’s not stupid enough to think that there’s not still a chance, especially with his breakout being kind of fresh, that things still can’t come crashing down with one wrong move. It’s too early to be losing his shit, too soon to be calling attention to himself. It’s not worth it.

Mickey makes a frustrated sound in the back of his throat and slides back into the car, resting his elbow against the edge of the door by the window, his fingers against his temple. He stares straight ahead, and when the light finally turns green ( fuck, he’d have just ran right through the light back in the day ), he slams his foot down on the gas so hard his tires screech as he pulls away.

It only takes a few minutes for the tension in his neck and shoulders to dissipate, the warm breeze coming in through the open window helping to calm his nerves a little. It’s miraculous, really, how easily he manages to let shit go these days, but it’s not as if he has much choice - and, if he’s completely honest with himself, he’s come a long way from the angry, impulsive boy he used to be when the only things that mattered were drugs, guns, and pretending to be the ideal son his father wanted him to be, even if it meant he had to pretend to be everything he wasn’t. Those days feel miles away, and the things that used to matter don’t matter anymore.

Terry can’t touch him. Mickey is as close to being a free man as he’s ever going to get.

And in forty-eight hours, Ian Gallagher will be bitching about a sunburn and it’ll be music to his ears.

Mickey doesn’t bother trying to fight the smile this time, letting it pull at the corners of his mouth until it’s so wide that he has to laugh. He shakes his head, amused by the mental image of Ian with peeling shoulders and pink cheeks and all those faded freckles scattered across the bridge of his nose, brought back to life and brightened by the sun.

The first thing they’re going to do as soon as Ian crosses over, Mickey decides, is go to the beach. Suddenly, he doesn’t feel so shitty for having made up so many excuses to avoid the ocean, like having better things to do than waste his time sitting in the warm sand, watching the waves roll in with a drink in his hand and the sun beating down on him. Alone. It had nothing to do with Ian not being there to experience it with him like he imagined he would be, not a thing to do with not wanting to be reminded that the two things that kept him going in prison were ripped away from him and tainted with what-ifs and could-have-beens. Not at all.

It’s not so hard now to think about white sand and blue water and cold beer. It’s doesn’t make his stomach twist to imagine dark green eyes and bright red hair, and his tattooed fingers grazing over that stupid eagle inked across warm, sandy skin. He can already hear Ian’s voice, low and quiet and sleepy from the heat as he tells him all about his trip back down here and how boring it is to sit in a bus for a whole fucking day with a bunch of old people who just want to talk about their grandchildren or how they won at bingo last week.

Mickey takes a deep breath, changing lanes and taking a right instead of a left, heading away from the motel he’s being staying at and towards the tiny convenience store he’s been stopping into on his way to work every night for the past week instead. The woman who owns the store is nice enough. Older, quiet, and she doesn’t look at him like he’s some kind of lost tourist despite his pale-ass skin and his shitty Spanish, which is the most important part.

Mickey parks on the curb just a little ways down from the shop, rolling up his window and reaching to grab his phone up from where he dropped it into the passenger’s seat after hanging up with Ian. He thumbs the home button, lighting up the screen to check for any missed calls or notifications ( nothing ), then climbs out of the car and slides the phone into his front pocket, patting the opposite one to check for his wallet.

The bell above the door jingles as he waltzes in, remembering at the last moment to catch the door so it doesn’t slam closed. The woman seated behind the counter looks up from the magazine she’s reading at the sound of the bell, her grey-brown hair pulled back into a low bun near the base of her neck. She smiles at Mickey, raising her brows a little.

“Hola, hermoso.”

Mickey lifts his chin slightly in greeting as he lets go of the door, offering her a half smile and a quick flash of his teeth as he slides his sunglasses up onto the crown of his head. “‘Ey, Marisol.”

“Eres muy temprano,” she says, flipping her magazine closed, her tone curious. Mickey stares at her for a few seconds and then shakes his head, lifting one hand to wave kind of vaguely in front of him with his fingers spread as he starts to move backwards down one of the narrow aisles, still in view of the register.

“I got no idea what the fuck that means.”

Marisol laughs quietly, using the magazine to fan herself, the small, metal fans tucked into the opposite corners of the store offering no relief from the dry heat outside. It’s unusually hot for this time of year, but as far as Mickey’s concerned, a little sweat on the back of his neck is much better than freezing his balls off. “You are very early,” she translates, watching him curiously as he stops in front of a display of toiletries. She’s used to seeing him later in the evening, when he stops in to grab a drink and a snickers on his way into work.

“Tamp - tampon-o?”

“Temprano. Early,” she corrects, her accent thick.

“Got it. This the highest shit you got?” Mickey asks, grabbing a bright yellow bottle of sunblock and holding it up, wiggling it a little between his fingers as he looks back toward the register. He smiles again - wider than she’s seen from him in the short amount of time he’s been coming into the store -, and raises his brows. “SPF 40 ain’t gonna cut it.”

It takes Marisol a moment to understand what he’s asking. She nods, shifting her weight on her stool and leaning her elbow on the counter as she sets her magazine down. The bell above the door chimes again as a younger boy walks in, and she pauses long enough to smile at him before she addresses Mickey. “There should be 60. Nobody buys, so maybe old. Check,” she answers with a shrug, shifting her gaze to watch the younger boy near the back of the store.

Mickey puts the bottle back and pushes a few out of the way, reaching toward the back of the shelf to drag a few bottles closer to the front. He picks through them - _forty, thirty-five, - fifteen? The hell’s even the point?_ \- and hums a short, triumphant sound as he snatches up what appears to be the last bottle of SPF 60 in stock. “Bingo.”

Marisol’s just finishing ringing up a frozen slush for the kid at the register by the time Mickey steps up. She drops a few coins into his sticky, outstretched palm before she shoos him away. Mickey sets the bottle down on the counter. Marisol looks at the bottle, then at Mickey, but she says nothing.

“ _What?”_ Mickey bites, standing up a little straighter and staring her down with raised brows. Jesus, he hates when people don’t just say whatever it is they’re thinking. He’s not a fucking mind reader.

“Eres muy temprano,” she repeats, reaching for the bottle and twisting it around until she finds the little green price sticker stuck on the front, upside down. She taps a few numbers on the register, then looks back up at Mickey again, tilting her head. “And you are happy. And you are not,” she waves her hand a little, gesturing to his body and then to the bottle on the counter. “Burned by the sun.”

Mickey pauses for a moment, trying not to focus on the second part. _And you are happy._ “The fuck’s that s’posed to mean? _And you're happy_. I ain’t always-,” he starts,  but Marisol interrupts.

“You are always grumpy, always with the frown and the eyebrows.”

“The eyebrows,” he says, unamused. Not a question, just pointing out that it means nothing without an explanation.

“Like this.” Marisol demonstrates, scrunching up her nose and drawing her eyebrows down sharply, pinching her face into a half-assed scowl. As much as he doesn’t want to, Mickey can’t help but smile, wetting his lips and looking away for a moment as he laughs under his breath. One could almost say he’s embarrassed, but one wouldn’t dare. “Today, you smile more, and you are early and you are buying… not what you buy every day.”

“Alright, whatever. Can you just bag my shit so I can go? I got shit to do.” He shakes a couple of coins from the bill sleeve of his wallet and drops them into her hand, his words sharp but his tone carrying none of the bite. “And nobody buys sunscreen _after_ they burn. Kinda defeats the fuckin’ purpose.”

Marisol shakes out a paper bag and drops the bottle of sunblock into it, pushing it across the counter toward him. “No candy?” she asks.

“Nah. I’ll be back again later. Six thirty. You still gonna be here?” Mickey grabs the bag in his fist, backing away from the counter toward the door. He’s smiling again, though he doesn’t know why.

“¿Para ti? Si.”

Mickey rolls his eyes a little, the bell ringing above his head as his shoulder presses against the glass. “Later, Señora.”

“Hasta luego, hermoso.”

Mickey catches the door with the heel of his shoe, easing it closed behind him before he heads down the sidewalk back to his car. He feels… good. Better than he has in the last week or so, that’s for damn sure, and while there’s a small part of him screaming in the back of his mind to not get too ahead of himself, warning him that there’s never been a time that something good didn’t also come with something bad, he’s content to ignore it. For now, at least.

Sliding his sunglasses back down onto the bridge of his nose, Mickey climbs back into his car and drops the sunscreen into the passenger seat before jabbing a finger at one of the buttons on the door panel and rolling his window back down. He shifts a little in his seat so he can fish his phone out, checking the time and then tossing it onto the dash.  Forty-eight hours feels like nothing and like an eternity at the same time, but it’s hardly anything compared to eight to fifteen years. It’s nothing compared a lifetime _without_ Ian Gallagher.

Mickey just sits there for a moment, the engine silent and the dry heat creeping in through his open window, warming his skin and dampening the back of his neck with a thin layer of sweat. He wets his lips and then presses them together, the corner of his mouth curling a little with a smile that’s still trying to find its place.

 _And you are happy_. 

He huffs a small breath through his nose, his lips parting over his teeth in a brief, near-giddy smile.

_Finally._

The drive from the store back to his motel is uneventful and not terribly long, but Mickey takes the scenic route anyway ( if you want to call driving around aimlessly “scenic” ), enjoying the warm breeze and the freedom to just drive without a care in the world. It was kind of nice coasting down the open roads on the way down from Chicago, with Ian in the driver’s seat and his own tattooed fingers resting high up on his thigh. Windows down, wind tousling his bright red hair, and Ian’s stupid smile every time he caught him staring.

That little voice presses at the back of his mind again, warning him not to get too caught up in riding the wave of good feelings, but he drowns it out with other thoughts. Like all the shit he needs to take care of before Ian gets here, and all the shit he’s inevitably going to forget to do until the last minute.

Mickey parks outside the door to his motel room and grabs his phone and the paper bag, hauling himself out of the car and nudging the door closed with his hip, his keys - all two of them -, jingling quietly as they hang from one of his fingers. One of the only pros of staying in one of the shittiest motels he’s ever seen - the ones in Chicago included -, is that they haven’t bothered to switch over to electronic locks and key cards, which Mickey finds oddly comforting in a way he can’t really explain.

He’s relieved to find the room exactly as he left it - the bed unmade, tiny TV still on with the volume low, and a small pile of dirty clothes on the floor in the far corner. So far, housekeeping has done a decent job of staying the fuck out like he requested. He’s never liked people snooping around in his shit without him knowing. Doesn’t matter that he’s got next to nothing for anyone to stick their nose in.

Mickey drops his keys, wallet, phone and the bottle of sunscreen on the small amount of empty space left on the TV stand, unbuttoning and shrugging out of his blue flannel and tossing it into the corner with the rest of his dirty clothes. He steps out of his shoes next, then peels off both of his socks and tosses those aside too, leaving him in his jeans and a solid white t-shirt. The sunglasses are the last to go, plucked from his face and dropped with the rest of his shit on the TV stand. He starts to peel off his undershirt next, but his fingers still, his attention momentarily drawn to the novella playing on the TV, English subtitles scrolling along the bottom. He watches for a solid minute before he catches himself, swearing under his breath and shaking his head slightly, eyebrows arched in feigned annoyance with himself for being entertained by some shitty Spanish soap opera.

“Jesus Christ, I need a shower,” he mutters to himself, stepping away from the TV and into the tiny bathroom. He presses the door closed with his elbow, then curls his fingers around the hem of his shirt, turning to face away from the mirror out of habit to avoid seeing the name inked over his heart.

But this time, he only turns half way before he pauses. There’s no reason for him not to look now, no reason that seeing the tattoo should make him feel sick and angry and like it’s harder to breathe than it should be. Mickey cocks his head a little and drags his shirt up and off, not bothering to shy away from his own reflection or the name of a man he’s loved longer and harder than anyone he’s ever known. He only looks at the lettering for a few seconds before he turns around to turn on the shower, but it’s more than he’s been able to manage for a while now, so it feels like a win.

The water pressure is shitty and the temperature is barely lukewarm at best, but it actually feels kind of nice on his sun-warmed skin, cooling him down and taking some of the tension out of his muscles. For a while, Mickey just stands there under the spray with his head tilted forward, his dark hair plastered down over his forehead and the water forming tiny rivers across his cheeks and down his chin. This morning he woke up thinking it was just going to be another shitty day he’d have to drag himself to the end of, just another day to remember that he’s free, but not in the way he thought he’d be, not in the way he’d wanted. Part of him is still expecting to wake up from whatever dream this is ( or does it count as a nightmare the moment he opens his eyes? ), because it almost feels too good, too lucky, too _easy_.

When the water starts to go from almost-warm to cold, Mickey snaps himself out of it and soaps himself up from head to toe with the tiny bottle of brandless three-in-one shampoo-conditioner-bodywash provided by the motel. He shuts off the water just before it creeps into too-cold territory and steps out, grabbing for a used towel he left on the floor from the day before. He towels his hair, then slings the towel low around his waist before wandering back out into his room, slicking his hair back with a push of his fingers.

The pile of clothes stacked on top of the television isn’t much of a pile anymore. Mickey grits his teeth a little at the thought of having to do laundry ( he hasn’t washed or folded his own shit since - well, probably since he was still shacked up with Svetlana ), tugging on the last of his clean clothes - a pair of dark jeans and a black t-shirt with a small tear near the collar.

Mickey’s shoulders shake with a sharp shiver that shoots down his spine, water dripping from the ends of his hair down the back of his neck. He runs the towel over his head one more time before tossing it down with the rest of his dirty clothes.

Suddenly, the room feels too small, too cramped, too… cheap, which is kind of strange, all things considered. Mickey bites at his lower lip, his eyes darting around the room as he turns to take it all in like he’s seeing it for the first time. The shitty, red-orange carpet that looks like it hasn’t been changed or even _cleaned_ since the motel opened ( whenever the hell that was ), the red and pink bed spread, frayed at one corner and far too big for the too-small bed, the rickety night stand and the lamp that hasn’t worked since he checked in perched on top of it, the crooked shade a questionable yellowish color.

For someone who’s spent most of his life living in a shit hole, it’s not bad. For Mickey, it could be a lot worse - it’s definitely a step up from a cold, colorless prison cell -, but soon it isn’t going to be _just Mickey_. Sure, Ian’s never lived the life of luxury either, but that doesn’t mean he can’t experience something close to it if Mickey can help it.

Mickey grabs his phone from the TV stand and swipes his thumb across the screen, unlocking it and tapping the camera icon near the bottom. He’s met with a live image of himself as the front facing camera opens ( to which he reacts with a small, annoyed “Jesus” ), then switches the point of view until the majority of the room fills the small screen. Mickey backs up a step to fit a little more into the frame, then snaps a picture before moving to sit on the edge of the bed.

There are a total of three numbers saved in his phone, so it takes zero effort to find Ian’s name. Mickey sends the photo first, then taps out a quick message to follow immediately afterward.

_Gettin the fuck outa this shit hole. Lamp hsn’t wrkd since I chked in a wk ago. How fuckin hrd is it 2 get Consuela 2 chnge a goddamn bulb?_

Mickey laughs to himself under his breath and then drops his phone onto the mattress next to him, sucking in a deep breath and letting out a heavy sigh before gathering up his dirty clothes and his wallet and heading down to the end of the building to the small closet masquerading as a laundry room. Might as well get all of his shit cleaned while he has the time to kill and the resources to do it.

Forty-six hours from now, he might not give a fuck about whether or not he has clean clothes at all. Who the hell is going to worry about clothes when they’re probably going to be scattered all over the floor anyway?

Mickey loads everything into the washer, drops some coins into the slot, and tries not to think about how fucking good it felt to hear Ian say “I love you” ( _I love you, and I should have gotten in that fucking car_ ) without any _buts_ or _I can’ts_ to ruin it afterwards.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kind of a slow chapter, but i just needed to establish a few things on mickey's end before the ball really gets rollin'. lemme know what you think via kudos or comments or both! and come hang out with me on tumblr @ **fingertats** if you want :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I wanted to go. I really did,” Ian interrupts, clicking his phone off and pushing it back into his pocket. He looks up at Mandy. She stares back at him, patient, and the silence seems to stretch between them for far longer than either of them intend for it to until Ian finally speaks again, the words so quiet that Mandy almost misses them.

**Canaryville, Chicago, IL.  
** _14:11:13  
_ _(2:11:13 PM)_

Mandy huffs a quiet breath through her nose and rolls her eyes, lifting her cigarette up toward her mouth for another pull.

“Canada’s like— it’s right fucking there,” she says, gesturing upwards with the tip of her cigarette  held carefully between two fingers. “Of course he’d make it complicated and go all the way t—,”

 _We_ _made it all the way to Mexico._

Mandy’s eyes widen briefly, her brows shooting upward in a way Ian can only guess must be hereditary. She looks so much like Mickey when he’s fresh out of patience that, if they weren’t actually siblings, the resemblance would be unsettling.

“Ian,” Mandy murmurs, low but sharp as she takes a step away from the counter towards him. She dips her head a little, trying to put herself into Ian’s line of vision. She reaches out, her fingers curling gently over the crook of his inner elbow, the material of his coat still a little chilly against her skin from the outside air. “What do you mean, ‘we’?”

Ian doesn’t pull his arm out of her grasp, but he doesn’t look at her, either. He’s not sure if he _can_ , not sure if he wants to see the look on her face - the anger or the disappointment or the confusion. The judgement. Whatever it is, he’s not sure if he’s ready to see it in her eyes because he’s already seen it all in Mickey’s. Instead, he continues to rifle through the old mail on the table, pushing some past-due bills aside with small flicks of his fingers.

“I went with him,” he answers after what feels like ages but is really only a handful of seconds. His voice is so quiet that Mandy has to strain to hear him, her lips pressed into a thin line and her brows drawn down low. Ian lifts last week’s newspaper and then sets it down again just a couple of inches to the left, his eyes falling on a green bic lighter that had been buried underneath. He picks it up, finally lifting his head to look at Mandy as he holds the transparent plastic between his fingers, giving it a little wiggle as if to say, ‘found it’.

Mandy just stares at him, confusion written clearly on her face. After a moment, she shakes her head, straightening back up without taking her eyes off of him. “You— you went with— I mean obviously you _didn’t_ , ‘cause this sure as hell isn’t Acapulco,” she says, gesturing a little wildly around the kitchen with her cigarette still between her fingers, sending some ash falling down onto the linoleum. Mandy fixes him with a pointed stare. Ian struggles not to look away again, but try as he might, he can’t help the small shift of his eyes and the slight frown that pulls at the corners of his mouth.

Softening a little, Mandy offers him the cigarette again, but he declines with a small shake of his head. Ian breathes in deep, dropping the lighter back onto a less-cluttered space on the table, and then shoves his hand back into his jacket pocket.

“I did. He asked— no, he didn’t ask me to go. He told me he was going and he said I could come with if I wanted. Told me to think about it. So I did. I couldn’t _stop_ thinking about it, so I just - I got in the car and we made it all the way to the border, and for some reason, I couldn’t—.” Ian stops abruptly, the muscles in his jaw straining as he clenches his teeth. He looks away from her then, his eyes falling on his backpack on the floor between the kitchen and the living room. When he continues, his voice is much quieter, hardly above a whisper. “I don’t know. I think I made a mistake.”

Mandy’s eyes search Ian’s face, tracing the lines and the angles and the shadows as if she might find the rest of his explanation written somewhere in them, but all she finds is a strange mix of what she can only interpret to be regret and something else she can’t quite place. Determination, perhaps, hidden near the corners of his eyes, in the sharp cut of his jaw, in his shoulders.

She glances toward his backpack again before turning away from him and walking over to the sink, turning on the water and holding the butt of her cigarette under the stream to put it out. She drops it into the disposal, and then turns back around, wiping her fingertips dry on the thigh of her jeans. Ian’s still not looking at her, but at his phone instead, just staring at the lock screen.

“By not going, or by—,”

“I wanted to go. I really did,” Ian interrupts, clicking his phone off and pushing it back into his pocket. He looks up at Mandy. She stares back at him, patient, and the silence seems to stretch between them for far longer than either of them intend for it to until Ian finally speaks again, the words so quiet that Mandy almost misses them. “I still do.”

Mandy shifts her weight from one foot to the other as things start to come together and realization creeps in. She doesn’t have to say anything, doesn’t need to ask the reason for Ian needing to see her. Ian fills in the blanks for her anyway.

“I need to fix it. I _want_ to fix it, so I’m—,”

“You’re going back. To Mexico.” There’s an odd sort of light in Mandy’s eyes when she says it. It’s intriguing and a little unsettling all at once, and Ian’s brows furrow briefly. He nods slowly in confirmation, eyeing her curiously.

“Yeah. I have to. …I just came to say goodbye.”

Ian waits for the explosion, though he’s not sure if he should be looking for a land mine or for a break in a dam. Mandy’s never really been one to cry easily, but Ian knows better than anyone that people can change.

Except Mandy is disturbingly calm, her expression mostly neutral save for that strange look in her eye from a moment before.

“No, you didn’t,” she says matter of factly, like she’s calling him on a bluff. Ian blinks at her, his lips parting with a response, but Mandy doesn’t give him a chance to get the words out before she’s brushing past him and walking out of the kitchen with a purpose.

“Fuck,” Ian breathes, assuming that she’s stomping off to keep him from seeing her upset and  trying to uphold the facade he learned to see through ages ago. He winces, breathing out heavily through his nose, and then moves to follow her.

“Mandy, hey. Come on. I need to do this. For Mickey. And for me, okay?  And it’s not like I even have a choice anymore anyw—.”

Ian stops outside her bedroom door, blinking as he watches Mandy opening and closing her dresser drawers, tossing things behind her onto her unmade bed. She looks completely fine. No red eyes, no tears. Nothing.

He’s at a loss.

“Mandy— what are you doing?”

“Can you grab the shoe box from the shelf in my closet?”

“I—,” Ian blinks, his confusion written all over his face. He nods after a moment, stepping over the threshold into her room and moving for the closet. It takes him a minute to find the box, buried underneath a pile of poorly folded blankets.

The sound of a siren somewhere in the distance makes him tense up on impulse and he turns to set the box down on her bed, suddenly a little urgent. He’d forgotten, for a moment, that he’s a wanted man.

“Look, Mandy. I have to go. I just wanted to say goodbye,” he says, reaching to catch her by the elbow. Mandy looks up sharply, the corner of her mouth curling a little with the vaguest hint of a smirk. Ian wonders if she’s always been this hard to read, or if all the time he’s spent being a shitty friend has resulted in him not knowing her as well as he used to anymore.

“Can you just wait like two minutes? I just need two minutes and then we can go.”

Ian jerks his head back a little, like she’s just grown antennas or a second head. He shakes his head, eyebrows drawn sharply together. And then it clicks, and his lips part slightly as his jaw drops an inch. He shakes his head again, a little more adamantly this time.

“We? No. Mandy, no, you can’t. I can’t let you. I won’t.”

“You _won’t_ ?” She laughs, though there’s no humor in it as she straightens up, turning to face Ian head on. “You may be my best friend, but I’ll be _damned_ if you or _any_ man thinks they can tell me what I can or can’t do anymore.”

Ian swallows, breathing in like he means to reply, but she beats him to it, stepping a little closer to him.

“Five minutes. Just let me pack my shit, and then we can go, alright? But you’re _not_ gonna tell me I can’t go.” Her tone has lost its edge, and her eyes are almost pleading. Ian grinds his teeth for a moment, his chin jutting the way it always does when he’s thinking too hard or biting his tongue.

“What the hell do you even want to go to Mexico for?” he asks finally, stepping away from her and reaching for one of the shirts she’s tossed onto the bed. He folds it in half, sleeve to sleeve, and then rolls it up tightly. “You’re just gonna give up your life here? You don’t even have a plan.”

 _But neither do you_ , the voice in the back of his head reminds him, but he ignores it.

“I’m not— Jesus, I’m not _moving_ there. I just want to stay long enough to kick my douchebag brother’s ass, maybe have a real margarita. Get away from all this for a little bit.”

Silence falls between them then, Mandy moving around quickly but quietly, grabbing everything she thinks she’ll need while Ian continues to fold and roll up her clothes, piling everything up neatly. After a few minutes, Mandy comes back with a small duffel bag, sliding in next to Ian and bumping shoulders with him on purpose. She looks up at him just as Ian looks down.

“...Mick’s gonna kill me for letting you come,” Ian says, the hint of a smile shaping his lips as he helps her pack. Mandy smirks and shrugs one shoulder, moving to step around him so she can pry the cardboard lid off the shoe box she had him get down for her.

“So don’t tell him I’m coming. I’ll kick his ass before he has a chance to kick yours.”

“Thanks.” Ian laughs under his breath, zipping up her bag.

“What are girlfriends for?” Mandy smiles at him, fond and teasing, and then she turns her attention away to rifle through the box. From where Ian’s standing, it just looks like a bunch of old birthday cards, postcards, yellowing photographs that he can’t really make out. Mandy unearths a small blue book and a thin stack of cash from the bottom of the pile. “I’m sure this is a dumb question, but you’ve got a passport, right?”

Ian rolls his eyes, trying not to check the time again. Forty-eight hours is more than enough time to get to Mexico, but it doesn’t mean he’s not anxious to get moving. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t still have other shit to worry about, like maybe the police tracking him down and taking him in.

“Yeah, I have a passport.” Not his, technically, but one that was issued to him a little after he’d joined the army. Or, rather, issued to Phillip Gallagher, but the picture on it is still his. Ian pauses, his eyes widening marginally. “Wait, fuck. _Fuck_ , it’s at my house. It was in my bag, and then Carl dumped everything out and then I didn’t even have time to check if— god damn it.”

Ian drags his hands down his face and then slides them back up, fingers pushing into his hair. He breathes out, drops his hands, and then digs for his phone to shoot off a quick text to Carl. _Cops still there?_

Mandy slides the lid back onto the box and then nudges it against Ian’s chest, silently asking him to put it back where he found it. Ian’s phone vibrates in his pocket. “Well, grab your shit and let’s go get it.”

Ian looks at her for a moment and then takes the box, tucking it back under the blankets in the closet before following her out of the room. He makes it about halfway down the hallway, and then slows to a stop, chewing on the inside of his cheek.

“Hey, um,” he says hesitantly. Mandy pauses to glance over her shoulder only to realize he’s stopped right in front of Mickey’s bedroom door. “I’ll meet you out front? Gotta take a piss.” He tips his head toward the door a little, lips pressed together in a way that suggests he knows he’s not going to get away with the bullshit excuse, but silently hoping that she won’t call him out on it anyway.

Mandy breathes out slowly, adjusting the weight of her bag on her shoulder. There’s no judgement in her expression, just… understanding. She nods, small and subtle. “Yeah. Okay,” she answers, her voice quiet. She offers him a faint smile, taking a few backward steps down the hall. “I’m just gonna smoke.”

Ian waits until he hears the sound of the front door opening and closing before he moves, turning slowly to face the bedroom door. Hesitantly, he lifts one hand, long fingers touching the edge of flimsy cardboard taped over flaked paint and old wood. Idly, he wonders who decided to put the sign back up - probably Mandy, he thinks, as a small reminder that Mickey was still around, even if he wasn’t _around._ His fingertips trace the curves of the S and the sharp lines of an F, and then his hand drops to settle over the doorknob. It’s cold against his skin, colder than he expects, but it would be stupid to think that the warmth from days long passed could linger after all this time.

The door sticks a little in the frame, an obvious sign that it hasn’t been opened in a pretty decent amount of time. Ian grips the handle a little tighter and gives it two firm tugs until the door separates from the jamb with a soft tearing sound as it peels away from the old paint that was holding it in place.

Ian is not at all surprised to find that hardly anything has changed. It’s been ages since he’s been in this room - over a year -, but he still remembers every little detail. Every ( questionable ) poster, every prayer candle tucked in between the clutter of random odds and ends spread over the top of the dresser ( though those had really belonged to Svetlana — Mickey was about as far from religious as a person could possibly get ). It’s all still there, almost as if time continued to move on everywhere else except for in this room.

For a few moments, all Ian can do is just stand there, the whole house silent save for the quiet sound of his breathing. His eyes wander slowly, drifting from one side of the room to the other and lingering here and there as each little thing brings up small flashes of memories he pushed back and locked away ages ago when thinking about Mickey came to be too hard and too much for him to deal with on top of everything else.

Now, though, he lets them come.

The Milkovich house is full of old memories. Some of them good, some of them bad ( and some of them sickening ), but most of Ian’s best memories in this house have taken place right here in Mickey’s old bedroom. The corner of his mouth quirks a little as he remembers the first time he ever stepped foot inside, his heart racing and his adrenaline pumping and his fingers hot with sweat under his gloves as he thunked the thick end of a tire iron between Mickey’s shoulders to wake him.

They’d both been so young, then.

Ian finally moves out of the doorway and further into the room, wandering toward the dresser pushed up against the far wall. He can almost hear Mickey’s voice, thick and rough with sleep and annoyance, asking him what he was wearing. _Oh, you mean this? Just something I threw on._

( Admittedly, some of the worst days of Ian’s life _also_ took place in the same house, in the same room, but these days he tries to focus more on the positive moments in his past than he does the negative ones. )

Carefully, Ian tugs open the top dresser drawer, unsurprised to find… a fuckload of weapons. Handguns, brass knuckles, extra clips, and even a fake police badge tucked under a silencer. Ian’s brows lift a little as he huffs a quiet breath through his nose. He shakes his head slightly and then pushes the drawer closed, moving on to the one below it.

All of Mickey’s clothes are still there, too many messily-folded shirts crammed inside, bunched up and slightly creased. Ian runs his fingers over the buttons of a black and blue plaid collared shirt, the hem near the shoulders fraying a little from where the sleeves were torn off. Below that, a faded red tank top with white lettering across the chest, and below that… bright green and orange.

Ian’s brows furrow a little, his head tilting as he shifts the two shirts aside, his fingertips sliding under the thin collar of a vibrantly colored Hawaiian shirt. Mickey had jokingly called it sexy, holding it up to his torso and showing it off with a little shimmy of his shoulders. Strangely enough, it hadn’t looked that bad on him, even if the south side of Chicago was the least appropriate place for that kind of thing.

 _But Mexico isn’t._  Ian laughs to himself under his breath and doesn’t hesitate to tug the shirt out of the drawer, slinging it over one shoulder with a satisfied smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth. Mickey’s probably going to give him shit for bringing him the shirt, tell him he’s stupid while trying to bite back a pleased little smile, but Ian doesn’t care. If anything, he’s looking forward to it.

Pushing the drawer closed, Ian takes one more look around the place where it all began just for nostalgia’s sake, and then steps out into the hall, pulling the door closed behind him. His hand lifts from the doorknob, his fingers mapping over the sketchily-written ‘Y’ in ‘STAY’.

“Fuck it, why not,” he murmurs to himself. With a shrug of one shoulder, he peels all the edges of the tape up, careful not to tear any of the cardboard, and when the sign is free, he folds it in half just once and tucks it under his arm, close to his ribs.

With Mandy probably growing impatient or concerned outside, Ian heads to the end of the hall and back into the kitchen. He grabs his backpack up from the floor ( and the lighter from the kitchen table ), and then heads out. Mandy’s at the bottom of the stairs, her duffel bag tucked between her feet on the sidewalk and her head tilted back as she blows out a thin cloud of smoke.

Ian stops at the top of the stairs, taking a moment to check his phone. There’s just one message, from Carl.  
   
**CARL GALLAGHER  
**      Nah, man. Every1 is gone. Just me & debs jr.       _2:48 PM_

Ian taps out a quick reply.   _Lip? Fi? Frank? Who has Liam?_ A little ellipsis pops up almost immediately, dancing around to indicate someone is typing. Ian’s phone vibrates again as Carl’s response bumps his up an inch.  
**  
** **CARL GALLAGHER  
**      Lips out w/ his girl or not-girl idk. Fi went 2 apts  & took liam with, franks probs dead or dying @ alibi.  
     Haven’t told any1 shit yet.      _2:49 PM_

“You comin’?” Mandy looks back at him from the bottom of the stairs, shifting her bag on her shoulder, her eyes narrowed slightly against the sun. Ian’s phone buzzes again, this time with a delayed response from Mickey.

 **MASTER CHIEF  
**      Fuck off, Gallagher.       _2:49 PM_

Punctuated, of course, with an emoji of a middle finger. Ian smiles, small at first, until it spreads and lights up his eyes. He laughs, tucking his phone away and stepping down off the last stair. He breathes in deep, looping his arm around Mandy’s shoulders as they start down the sidewalk.

“Yeah. I’m coming.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whelp, there she is. a couple more chapters and then we'll be getting into the action ( "action" ), i promise! also, if you haven't noticed yet, there are a lot of time parallels happening here and they will continue to happen so pay attention to that at least a little bit! let me know what you think via comments or kudos or both, and come hang out with me on tumblr @ **fingertats** if you want :)
> 
> ( also, that hawaiian shirt, though. please tell me you remember the hawaiian shirt. )


End file.
